Black Violin is changing stereotypes about who plays the violin and what gets played on it.

Black Violin consists of Wil Baptiste and Kev Marcus — two young, hip, black guys who are just as comfortable busting out some Bach or Vivaldi as they are playing Kanye West.

You can see their brand of classical, hip-hop, jazz and R&B as performed on the violin when Black Violin performs at 6 p.m. Sunday in the Wentz Concert Hall at North Central College in Naperville.

"You're going to see a really energetic show," Baptiste said. "The best way to describe our show is a rock concert from a violinist's perspective. Instead of guitars, you're going to see violins. It's a high-energy show, it's a positive show, it's a show you can bring your kids, your mother, your grandparents, and everyone's going to be standing up dancing and having a good time and experiencing a new way to approach music."

The violins are amplified, and there's a drummer and a DJ backing them, too.

"It's classical meets hip-hop; it's pretty much a fusion that no one's ever heard," he said.

Baptiste and Marcus met in high school in the late 1990s. Post-college, they moved in together and set out to change the music world by challenging stereotypes the violin.

"We wanted to be able to incorporate what we knew, which was classical music, and introduce that into popular music in a way that no one's ever done," he said. "And the artistry was something that we never really thought of, because we didn't think of it that way. Playing violin over hip-hop was very easy; it's very natural for us to do it. So when we started getting noticed and started touring, we got more opportunities."

Some of those opportunities include performing with Kanye West, Aerosmith and Tom Petty and collaborating with Wu-Tang Clan, Wyclef Jean and Alicia Keys.

They've since toured the world and released their first record last year, "Stereotypes." They are scoring the TV show "Pitch" on Fox, and are in the infant stages of working on a new album.

Baptiste started playing the viola at 14 and immediately fell in love with the instrument. Marcus and Baptiste both continued playing in college, majoring in performance.

"That was the idea, to perform and play in orchestras," he said. "But we never really fit in. Particularly back in the day, post-9/11, there weren't a lot of jobs after graduation in South Florida for classical musicians. So we figured, let's just create our own lane. Our own genre."

Naperville audiences will hear those classical-meets-hip-hop songs from "Stereotype," including "Brandenburg" and "Dirty Orchestra."

"You're going to hear a mixture of a lot of different things," he said. "Hip-hop, classical, some R&B, some soulful stuff in there. It's a melting pot of tons of different ingredients, but it all makes sense."

They play about 85 percent original music in their shows, plus some fun covers of Top 40 songs.

"People should come out to see us if they want to experience something that they've never experienced. If they want to hear music in a way that they've never imagined," he said.

"If they want to experience that, they should come to a Black Violin concert. If they want to completely forget about all the things that are happening in our country socially, come to the Black Violin concert. If they want to be on a musical roller coaster and be in a very sophisticated atmosphere as well, then it's for them. If you love music, a Black Violin concert is the place to be."